Anza proposes upgrading Alpenglow to 100-150 milliseconds on Solana

What is Alpenglow?

Alpenglow is a core protocol upgrade of Solana, proposed by Anza to replace the current Proof-of-Stake TowerBFT consensus mechanism and Proof-of-History (PoH) system. Alpenglow introduces two main components:

• Votor – a new consensus mechanism

• Rotor – an alternative system to PoH, which optimizes transaction history verification.

These changes are designed to reduce block confirmation times to just 100-150 milliseconds, while increasing bandwidth efficiency and transaction processing capacity.

This event is considered a turning point because it not only improves the technology but also positions Solana as a pioneering blockchain in meeting the speed and scale needs of decentralized applications (DeFi, NFT, GameFi).

With DEX trading volume reaching $113 billion in the past month, far surpassing Ethereum ($78.9 billion), Alpenglow could cement Solana’s leadership in the DeFi space.

What motivated Anza?

Solana has long stood out for its high transaction speeds and low fees, but the network has not been immune to challenges like congestion and temporary outages. For example, in 2022, Solana experienced a block production outage that lasted more than an hour. These issues have put pressure on developers to improve the reliability and performance of the network.

Anza, as an independent development studio, has a strong incentive to innovate to maintain Solana’s competitive advantage over rivals like Ethereum, Sui, or Aptos. The Alpenglow proposal reflects Anza’s ambition to not only overcome current limitations but also shape Solana as an ideal platform for large-scale applications, from DeFi to the metaverse.

What is the core of Alpenglow's innovation?

Votor: A new consensus mechanism that replaces TowerBFT, reducing block confirmation latency to 100-150 milliseconds. This allows Solana to process transactions almost instantly, a big advantage in high-speed applications such as DeFi or GameFi trading.

Rotor: This system replaces PoH, optimizing the verification of transaction history by reducing computational load and improving bandwidth efficiency. Rotor helps Solana maintain the ability to process millions of transactions per day, such as the record of 66.9 million transactions in a single day in December 2024 thanks to Pudgy Penguins' PENG token.

These changes not only increase speed but also improve scalability, helping Solana meet growing demand from projects like Eclipse, which uses the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) as the execution layer in its modular blockchain model.

Is Alpenglow Enough to Take Solana Over Ethereum?

Solana has now surpassed Ethereum in DEX trading volume ($113 billion vs. $78.9 billion over the past month), but Ethereum still holds the edge in decentralization and security. Alpenglow could help Solana strengthen its position in high-speed applications, but to surpass Ethereum, Solana needs to ensure that the upgrade is not only faster but also more reliable.

The bigger question is whether Alpenglow can help Solana attract more major developers and projects, especially as Ethereum improves with the Pectra upgrade and Layer-2s like ZKsync. The race between these two giants will depend on Alpenglow’s ability to bring real value to the Solana ecosystem.

Once again we give our opinion on potential projects in the crypto market. This is not investment advice, consider your portfolio. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the platform in any way. This article is not intended to be a guide to making investment decisions.

Compiled and analyzed by HCCVenture

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